Product description

Set in the 1930s, Goodbye to Berlin evokes the glamour and sleaze, excess and repression of Berlin society. Isherwood shows the lives of people at threat from the rise of the Nazis: a wealthy Jewish heiress, Natalia Landauer, a gay couple, Peter and Otto, and an English upper-class waif, the divinely decadent Sally Bowles.

Author information

Christopher Isherwood was born in 1904 and moved to America where he took up formal citizenship in 1946. His many famous works include Mr Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye to Berlin.

Review quote

"A great talent" Guardian "Isherwood is a master of the emotionally cathartic moment, funny and perspicacious" Evening Standard "A masterpiece" The Economist "[A] reminder of a bygone era, powerfully capturing the energy and sleaze of Weimar-era Berlin" Independent "Reading this novel is much like overhearing anecdotes in a crowded bar while history knocks impatiently at the windows" -- John Sutherland Guardian, 1000 novels everyone must read

Editorial reviews

Isherwood taught English in Berlin from 1929 to 1933 and in Goodbye to Berlin wrote a semi-autobiographical record of his experiences. It remains the archetypal sketch of prewar Berlin, its bars and its boys, and introduces the immortal Sally Bowles. Before the dawn of Cabaret, Goodbye to Berlin was adapted into a play by John van Druten as I Am a Camera in 1951. (Kirkus UK)